Members of our team will be in attendance at most of these: We hope to see you there!

HR Summit 2010

28 – 30 April 2010 at the Crystal Palace, Luna Park, Sydney

Free to attend and spread across two days, delegates will see the very best speakers from Australia”s leading companies, as well as the latest products, services and technologies available from a diverse range of industry specialists.

Learn more at http://sydney.hrsummit.com.au

Higher Education HR Conference 2010

28 – 30 April 2010 at the Sofitel, Brisbane

With the title “2020 Vision” this conference is all about planning the University of the future.

Learn more at http://www.aheia.edu.au/conf_2010

AHRI National Convention 2010

10 – 11 May 2010 at the Melbourne Convention and Exhibition Centre, Melbourne

Australia’s biggest event for HR and people managers featuring quality international and local speakers and the latest people management solutions.

Learn more at http://www.convention.ahri.com.au

CeBIT Australia 2010

24 – 26 May 2010 at the Sydney Convention and Exhibition Centre, Darling Harbour

Not strictly HR, but a must visit for anyone on the cusp of HR and business technology, CeBIT is returning to Sydney in under a month.

Learn more at http://www.cebit.com.au/

Oracle and OrgPlus Public Training 2010

Dates throughout April, May and 2010

Our cost-effective public training sessions are now in full swing for 2010, with our first session in Adelaide kicking off next week.

Learn more about Oracle Discoverer training workshops

Learn more about OrgPlus training workshops

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Introduction

When we think of organisation charts, the delivery of analytical and metric information is not the first thing that comes to mind. Instead, we think of one or two page hierarchical charts used to view the reporting structure of a department or two. Usually these charts are in PowerPoint, Visio or similar format. By centralising such information and combining hierarchical data from all departments, many HR and HRIS practitioners are finding that centralised, Web-based organisation charts can deliver value far exceeding traditional expectations.

Many workforce analytics and scorecard systems can cost well in excess of US$4 million and take longer than 18 months to implement. Even with this investment, organisations are frequently left with unfulfilled expectations. For a modest amount of this cost, organisations can achieve a generous percentage of the original goals established for many workforce analytics and scorecard systems. By using a centralised, Web-based organisation charting platform as both a user interface and secure delivery vehicle, they can accomplish many key goals without such an elaborate investment.

The same charts used to visualise supervisory reporting structures at a departmental level can become a convenient launch platform for the delivery of many functions. These include simple reporting, critical data visualisation, organisational modeling, data validation and much more. Many enterprises are finding that Web-based organisation charts provide an effective platform for the delivery and visualisation of analytical data, metrics and organisational information in all forms.

As the structure of the global economy continues to take hold, the sheer complexity of the modern enterprise presents serious management challenges. In order to remain competitive in this environment, an unprecedented level of accuracy is required for a large variety of organisational information. There is no better way to correct inaccuracies than to conveniently and securely expose them to the people with a vested interest in their correction.

Using the unique features of centralised Web-based organisation charting, information can be easily and securely accessed by anyone in the enterprise via the use of just a Web browser and a click on a standard URL Web link. Further, by creating a single centralised platform for enterprise-level organisational charts, implementers create an unprecedented environment for growth, visualisation and accuracy. This strengthens an organisation’s ability to remain competitive in the economic environment of today and beyond.

We do not have to look far to see why this concept works so well. Most often HR analytics and metrics provide information about two things — individuals and organisations. Even when metrics are about individuals, they are best viewed in comparison to an individual’s peers. Additionally, there is not a better place to view organisational metrics than in context with the organisational hierarchy. This natural interface entices even the shortest executive attention span to take a closer look to visualise with a level of accuracy not possible with less intuitive interfaces.

Let’s look at a few simple examples…

OrgPlus voted Best HR Product 2008

HumanConcepts’ OrgPlus Enterprise Blueprint Collaborative Workforce Planning Solution Selected for Coveted Award by Human Resources Industry Experts

HumanConcepts today announced that OrgPlus Enterprise Blueprint, its new Web 2.0, collaborative workforce planning solution for HR professionals and line managers, has been named as one of the “Top 10 HR Products of the Year” by Human Resource Executive® magazine. OrgPlus Enterprise Blueprint is recognised for ease-of-use, innovation and value because it enables HR professionals to proactively model the impact of workforce change spurred by transitions, growth, reorganisations or company mergers.

“Human Resource Executive® has been evaluating HR products and conducting this competition for 20 years,” explained David Shadovitz, editor in chief of Human Resource Executive magazine. “Our goal has always been to identify products and services that clearly offer value to the HR community while demonstrating innovation. With OrgPlus Enterprise Blueprint, we were impressed how the solution easily creates “what if” scenarios to model workforce changes with others in a Web 2.0 environment.”

“We selected HumanConcepts’ OrgPlus Enterprise Blueprint to give us visibility into the impact of workforce changes as we entered into the reorganisation and merger phases of two large departments at the university,” commented Ana Zavaleta, HRIS Manager, University of Southern California. “The solution enabled us to model scenarios and gain clarity into our best options before embarking on significant changes, which saved us time and money and smoothed the entire reorg process.”

“We are excited about receiving this prestigious award from Human Resource Executive magazine,” said Martin Sacks, CEO, HumanConcepts. “The award affirms our vision behind OrgPlus Enterprise Blueprint. Our customers need a way to easily plan and collaborate around workforce changes, to do compensation planning, and to efficiently share results. OrgPlus Enterprise Blueprint drastically reduces the time it takes for our customers to plan, reorganise or to merge organisations, enabling them to quickly realise the business benefits resulting from change.”

The HR Executive award

Organisations face increasing demand to automate complex business processes that span multiple back office systems and can adapt to change. Historically deploying complex workflows was tough – developing interfaces, customising the application, and developing software to schedule and monitor the process. If the process changed, this required more effort…

Fortunately Oracle has solutions for integrating applications to manage complex processes.

Talent2′s Alesco HRIS provides an inbuilt workflow solution to cater for the common business transaction process flow. Customers often require tailored process solutions that suit their individual business requirements. The use of additional Workflow products allow customers to tailor the Workflow process without the need for customizations.

This white paper looks at the two major business process management tools from Oracle and how they can be used with Alesco’s Web Kiosk.

A major feature of Open World was the latest database release, 10g, with features including Grid computing (the g in 10g). Grid computing is basically clusters of cheap servers acting as one virtual server sharing disk space. This reduces the single point of failure and also allows the application to be easily scaled in terms of CPU and memory. Other nice features in 10g is the self managing and tuning of the database, aimed at making it easier to administer and troubleshoot – watchout DBA’s.

A strong message given at Open World was Oracle’s support and encouragement for running the Linux operating system on Intel hardware, a combination referred to as Lintel. Oracle develops on and runs the majority of their internal apps on Lintel and is talking up the combination for clients. Dell has also started selling servers bundled with Red Hat Linux and Oracle 10g at very low prices.

Within the Alesco community there is already a number of sites successfully running Linux, a supported platform on the e807 version of Alesco.

If you’re thinking of moving to Linux for your Alesco install, here’s a couple of reasons why you should:

Lower TCO for existing UNIX sites

Those sites with proprietary UNIX environments (HP, AIX, Solaris) should be able to lower their TCO with a move to Linux and Intel. Existing staff skilled in UNIX require minimal training to move to Linux. Custom programs and tools that have been written should migrate with no effort. It’s a fair bet that most UNIX techs have already experienced Linux and have installed it on a server somewhere in your organisation!

Replicating your production instance for testing and development environments can also be achieved using nothing more than desktop PC’s running Linux.

More bang for your buck

The experiences Navigo has had running Alesco on Linux and Intel all point to quicker report processing times. Previously Intel had been disadvantaged by the 32 bit architecture, meaning SGA’s for database could not grow beyond 4gb. Now with the release of 64 bit architecture, Intel can now compete with the proprietary UNIX servers.

At the recent benchmark for the PNG Government, we processed 66,000 employees in under 3 hours. This was on a cluster of two 4CPU Intel Itanium Servers with 64 bit Red Hat Linux with a 7GB SGA. The payrun was split into 8 streams using the standard Alesco functionality which balanced nicely across the CPU’s.

With a cluster of Intel servers being considerably cheaper, sometimes one-tenth that of proprietary UNIX vendors, the cost savings to organisations are substantial.

Simplify the support process

Different flavours of UNIX, multiple versions of the OS, multiple versions of Oracle. Most sites have probably experienced certification problems and Oracle/Alesco bugs that only appear in their version/flavour of UNIX. Sometimes even trying to get a copy of the Oracle software for that version is a nightmare.

Running Linux, sites benefit from strong Oracle support for Linux issues and the availability of Oracle software on the OTN website.

For the Alesco application, more sites running the one operating system allows for quicker identification and resolution of Alesco/Oracle issues and simplifies the compatibility problems.

Come upgrade time, Alesco sites also benefit from the testing that more pro-active sites have already performed on the latest Alesco/Oracle combination.

For most organisations the challenge is reduce IT costs and deliver “unbreakable” systems. Running Alesco on a Lintel platform is certainly a step in the right direction.

For more info about Oracle on Linux see Oracle’s Linux FAQ